An there in lies the problem with LFR - its too easy to complete so people exhaust the content on their chosen skill level, but you cant extend it with difficulty due to the fear of them quitting.
Now that more and more people flock to LFR its becoming a real issue. Personally, Id restrict it to only 50% of raid content encouraging people to want to see more and join guilds.

And then you're back to the point where participation on the last 50% of raids is so low the devs won't be able to justify the cost. LFR is not the reason raiding is dying, it's the reason that all max level PVE content is raiding. Eventually maybe someone will figure out that just because people do LFR doesn't mean they like it all that much and that some other form of gear progression might serve more players. The one thing the devs do not want the bean counters to find out is what LFR participation would be like if they made any other form of content viable for PVE gearing - because they already know the answer and the answer is not one that would let them develop raids and only raids.

I feel like times and players have changed, a lot of people now want instant gratification. If you get stuck on a boss they get discouraged the first week, in vanilla I remember spending 2-4 weeks on a boss before downing it with 50 ppl showing up every raid night excited for progression and it was a very big deal when we finally got it. In Vanilla Naxx we had a kill video with decent editing for every single kill because it was a good feat. Killing bosses now doesn't feel as epic excluding a couple of the end-zone bosses. Originality is gone on 9/10 boss fights and mechanics..

I can see this. We consume content very quickly. That said, burn out would occur both ways the Old way and the Current way.
I also think there is more options for us on what to play. Not just PC, you have phone/tablet, consoles all generating really interesting games to play. There is only so much time in a given day.

And then you're back to the point where participation on the last 50% of raids is so low the devs won't be able to justify the cost. LFR is not the reason raiding is dying, it's the reason that all max level PVE content is raiding. Eventually maybe someone will figure out that just because people do LFR doesn't mean they like it all that much and that some other form of gear progression might serve more players. The one thing the devs do not want the bean counters to find out is what LFR participation would be like if they made any other form of content viable for PVE gearing - because they already know the answer and the answer is not one that would let them develop raids and only raids.

When was it an issue? Raids nerf themselves as the tiers progress. Even now normal mode only guilds can go back to do Heroic T14.
Few people got to see Heroic T14 but more and more players will have the opportunity (the option of "skill up" or "gear up" is always there).

The problem is people only bother if they can 2 man or 5 man old content.
Why? Because you have to pug.
But what if LFR was used for old content?

Now with transmog, old tiers become even more relavent. So what's this "trying to justify the cost" bullshit that is being spewed?
And what's more? You add incentives to run old content like mounts or titles.

All these ideas will work towards that goal without making the content itself unchallenging and unrewarding to even the shittiest of players.

And then you're back to the point where participation on the last 50% of raids is so low the devs won't be able to justify the cost. LFR is not the reason raiding is dying, it's the reason that all max level PVE content is raiding. Eventually maybe someone will figure out that just because people do LFR doesn't mean they like it all that much and that some other form of gear progression might serve more players. The one thing the devs do not want the bean counters to find out is what LFR participation would be like if they made any other form of content viable for PVE gearing - because they already know the answer and the answer is not one that would let them develop raids and only raids.

However, allowing your user base to easily complete raids and therefore exhaust content may not work in the long term either. Exclusivity of content is a very good way of encouraging people into guilds forming long term bonds. Its not about what percentage of people beat the final boss, its the percentage of people that want to beat the final boss and keep playing to do it.

Once there were enough players for guilds to recruit, now there isn't. By all accounts LFR is very popular possibly due to its ease and convenience.

Id say it makes perfect sense.

Modern-day raiding is unpopular because it is difficult and inconvenient. It's difficult and inconvenient because there are no ramp up mechanisms so potential raiders are discouraged before they can become competent.

LFR is popular because it's easy and convenient.

However, just because the reason for LFR's popularity is the same as the reason for normal raiding's unpopularity doesn't mean that LFR is killing raiding. If LFR was removed from the game raiding would remain difficult and inconvenient. Instead of turning to raids the people who now run LFR would simply unsubscribe. When Blizzard makes raiding easier and more convenient raiding will become more popular. Flexible raiding promises to do that.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Renisis86

Hopefully Flex Raiding will solve this issue, but with flex raiding Blizz needs to consider giving LFR either the boot, or making it more undesirable.

It's already undesirable! Unfortunately, aside from actual raiding, that's all the multi-player content there is in the end game and that's why it's as popular as it is. Besides, that logic doesn't make sense! "Let's take our most popular feature and make it bad!" What is that supposed to accomplish? In business if you have something that's popular you want to emulate it, not ruin it!

However, allowing your user base to easily complete raids and therefore exhaust content may not work in the long term either. Exclusivity of content is a very good way of encouraging people into guilds forming long term bonds. Its not about what percentage of people beat the final boss, its the percentage of people that want to beat the final boss and keep playing to do it.

I'm talking about the fact that the developers have basically admitted that normal/heroic raiding serve such a small number of players that without the participation of LFR, they have a hard time justifying the development time currently put into raids.

Content will always be exhausted, because players will do the content they want to and have time to do and anything that is beyond that may as well not exist to them. What you raiders fail to realize is that normal raiding is to 90% plus of Blizzard's customers, content that may as well not exist. Yes, some tiny tiny fraction of people may develop an interest in it and try it out, but there are probably fewer of those than players who are leaving raiding for whatever reason. Hence, the percentage of Blizzard's customers using normal/heroic raiding isn't going up and likely never will again.

LFR has essentially nothing to do with organized raiding dying off, except as a way for the developers to show enough participation that they can justify making raids. Why else do you think they have gone so far out of their way to keep gearing non-competitive with LFR? Anything that threatens LFR threatens raiding and right now they won't allow that.

This is essentially the same thing. Good player still perform special mechanics in a fight, and they still carry worse players.

Have you raided lately? This is just not possible any more (at least not on progression). If a player dies, no matter how good or bad, the healers will OOM, the DPS check will fail, and/or the adds will wipe the raid. Every single person in a raid is valuable until the good players outgear the content. At that point the well-geared players can power through without one or two others, but until you get to that point every person is required.

It's already undesirable! Unfortunately, aside from actual raiding, that's all the multi-player content there is in the end game and that's why it's as popular as it is. Besides, that logic doesn't make sense! "Let's take our most popular feature and make it bad!" What is that supposed to accomplish? In business if you have something that's popular you want to emulate it, not ruin it!

Loot good as last tiers heroic items is pretty desirable. Considering your sitting at about 450 ilvl when you hit 90. If they made LFR gear ilvl the same as last tiers normal gear then that would keep the hardcore raiders from running it, and still reward good epic loot. LFR definatly has its place. Just in its current form gets alot of things wrong, and does more harm to the core game than good. If you want a solo than WOW may not be for you.

Loot good as last tiers heroic items is pretty desirable. Considering your sitting at about 450 ilvl when you hit 90. If they made LFR gear ilvl the same as last tiers normal gear then that would keep the hardcore raiders from running it, and still reward good epic loot. LFR definatly has its place. Just in its current form gets alot of things wrong, and does more harm to the core game than good. If you want a solo than WOW may not be for you.

Consider that you can't even do MSV LFR until you hit a 460 ilevel. You're not going to get into the ToT LFR until you have a 490 ilevel. Also consider that you only have a 15% chance (25% on the older tiers) per fight of getting loot and a fraction of that of getting useful loot. With a well-geared raid group you have a much higher chance of getting loot, and even loot that is not personally good for you is beneficial because it will make next week's raid that much easier. This idea that LFR is showering epics on casuals is pretty silly. Their ilevel progression raid is much lower than the typical raider's.

Also, there is currently no engaging middle ground between solo play and content that requires 9 other good players with schedules that are compatible with yours. Multiplayer means two or more, not minimum of ten.

Normal should be reduced in difficulty. Heroic should be reduced in difficulty.
And the tiny fraction for whom heroic raids are currently well tuned? Too bad,so sad! With the arterial bleed of subs the fastest it's ever been, the vanity development that gives you guys your own content is no longer supportable.

Have you raided lately? This is just not possible any more (at least not on progression). If a player dies, no matter how good or bad, the healers will OOM, the DPS check will fail, and/or the adds will wipe the raid. Every single person in a raid is valuable until the good players outgear the content. At that point the well-geared players can power through without one or two others, but until you get to that point every person is required.

Yes, I have been raiding lately. I suppose it depends on the size you are refering to. I was answering a question saying old raiding was harder then the raiding of today. You are right in saying that if a player dies it's most likely a wipe, but that is only in 10 man content. My current experinces are from a 25 man raiding guild, and you can certainly have people die and still manage to beat a fight. Most heroic progression kills end up that way. I think we lost like 5 people on the final head in our Heroic Meg kill.

I think people are beginning to quit when they complete the PvE content - at least until the next content patch and its not a model that is sustainable.

In fact, you really don't know if it's sustainable or not. There's potentially no difference between logging off for six months at the very end of an expansion and probably for a month or so inbetween widely-spaced out patches and more frequent but shorter absences while patches are coming out more quickly. If they can solve the end of expansion lull--something that I'm not yet convinced that they can--then it's a win for them.

Really though, we have no metrics at all on how many people stay full time and how many people suspend their subscriptions during an expansion and for how long. It could have been going on like this for years and you wouldn't necessarily have much of a sense of the scale of it.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by NigelGurney

Exclusivity of content is a very good way of encouraging people into guilds forming long term bonds. Its not about what percentage of people beat the final boss, its the percentage of people that want to beat the final boss and keep playing to do it.

Except for the very prevalent practice of guild-hopping during BC. People that want to play with friends will find ways to play with friends. People that actually want to be in a raiding guild will keep hunting for one until they find one.

Discussing moderation is against the rules and makes a post liable for an infraction. Send a PM if that's not clear. Don't put it in a thread.
Please report problem posts instead of responding to them.
Forum FAQ. Read it.
Post about the topic, not about one another.
Treat me like anyone else unless you're breaking rules or we need to do site business. I play. I have likes and dislikes. We're not that different.

its the percentage of people that want to beat the final boss and keep playing to do it.

The percentage of people who want to kill bosses for the sake of killing bosses is extremely fucking tiny. In fact it was so inflated in the past that people are abandoning it for lfr now. In cata they were abandoning it for dungeons and valor. People do it for the loot. They don't necesarilly like raiding or ever did but now the loot (character progression) is all behind raiding so they all raid.

Last edited by Glorious Leader; 2013-07-03 at 02:41 AM.

The hammer comes down:

Originally Posted by Osmeric

Normal should be reduced in difficulty. Heroic should be reduced in difficulty.
And the tiny fraction for whom heroic raids are currently well tuned? Too bad,so sad! With the arterial bleed of subs the fastest it's ever been, the vanity development that gives you guys your own content is no longer supportable.

The problem is tho noone really cares for that. And since it's RNG anyway, it isn't that visible in practice. At the end of the day, 10 mans are much less hassle and in several cases the bosses are easier no matter how hard Blizzard tries to balance it. The only source for 25 man recruitment atm are other 25 man guilds that are dying and this source is ending really fast.

The only source for 25 man recruitment atm are other 25 man guilds that are dying and this source is ending really fast.

25mans have been in trouble since Cata launch with the shared lockout. Their numbers have been in freefall ever since... Theres not much that can be done about this decline unless radical changes r made to the overall raiding model.

25mans have been in trouble since Cata launch with the shared lockout. Their numbers have been in freefall ever since... Theres not much that can be done about this decline unless radical changes r made to the overall raiding model.

That's true tho I have some hope with the separate realm first achievement. For competitive 25mans having to race with 10mans is mostly rather unfair often leading to 25man guild switching to 10man just at the end of race having to sit out more than half of the guild for that period.

This ofc will not be enough but it's a first step in acknowledging that 25man and 10man raid cannot really be compared and cannot compete between each other.

The other thing that brings some hope is Flex which for 10man guilds who actually would like to try to switch to 25man, is a nice transition with having something to do for the new members who don't fit yet into 10man group when 25man is not ready yet.

However, one thing that makes me wonder is guilds that have 3-4 10man groups and why don't they try to form a 25man :P

Yeah. Because people would rather waste an hour and a half with 24 random strangers, one of whom is bound to be a troll, for a chance at subpar gear instead of spending 45 minutes with nine friends to clear the same content for guaranteed superior drops. That makes perfect sense. LFR is obviously at fault.

Actually in LFR you're guaranteed to get a full run, exactly when you want - even at weird hours. You can skip weeks and it's not a problem for anyone. You can leave early without creating problems to your group. You don't have to schedule anything... it's just a world of difference. For my personal needs and tastes, there's no chance I'm going back to organized raiding ever.

However, allowing your user base to easily complete raids and therefore exhaust content may not work in the long term either. Exclusivity of content is a very good way of encouraging people into guilds forming long term bonds. Its not about what percentage of people beat the final boss, its the percentage of people that want to beat the final boss and keep playing to do it.

I love how you guys like to say 'Getting rid of LFR will encourage players to join Raid Guilds' when you don't actually want these people in your raid guilds, you just want exclusivity back which means you can reject 90% of the playerbase from seeing 'your' content. You guys like to sugar it to make it go down sweeter but lets call a duck a duck and stop lying about it.

If you read my Thread 'why do you choose LFR over a Raid Guild' you will see that people who use LFR as their end game typically say;

1. They dont have time to schedule raiding in. You don't want these players. They are not on the menu.
2. They don't like Raid Guild Drama. These people don't want you.
3. They don't like applications (a small percentage of the posters said this) which means applications are doing what they were designed to do, screening out undesirables who are not willing to go the extra yard.

The LFR hating Exculsivity crowd like the ideal of getting rid of LFR because they are inside the door trying to pull it shut which works out nicely for them but the truth of the matter is as a business that model of players holding the content hostage to make themselves feel special doesn't work mathmatically.

Without LFR blizzard would have to design less Raid Bosses Less often. But arguing logic and math with exclusivists is pointless since they still exist in on a flat planet in a geocentric universe.